


The Broken Tree

by evitably



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Character Study, Episode Related, Gen, very painful frIENDSHIP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evitably/pseuds/evitably
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>All of a sudden, Killua disappears from behind him.<i> // reaction to episodes 113 and 114.</i></i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Broken Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Reaction piece to Gon and Killua's scenes in episodes 113 and 114. Many thanks to [kawaiiglasses](http://kawaiiglasses.tumblr.com/) for the beta!

All of a sudden, Killua disappears from behind him.

Gon keeps on running.

*

Killua stops. His feet slip across the floor with practiced ease as he looks back. Not forward, at Gon.

Back.

He picks up his feet: first the one, and then the other, and goes where he's needed.

The first step is always the hardest to take. It's easier to keep on going straight than to change directions. To change directions means to stop, to look straight, then look sideways, then up again, and make a decision.

To change directions means having given up on what's ahead.

The hall stretches out in front of him; he knows there's an end to it, can see the walls closing in on it, yet it feels endless.

He doesn't know what to do. Retreat? Move forward? This is a brand new path he's made for himself, and every moment threatens to trip him up.

No.

No, it's not that he doesn't know what to do next. It's that he can't think. 

He's forgotten how.

*

Gon's back is cold. Killua still hasn't come back.

He takes the stairs several at once, leaps over them as if they are nothing.

*

Killua's mind might not remember thought, but his body remembers instinct: it brings hard-won skills into action with admirable economy and executes them flawlessly.

Then it stops.

Turns back.

There's something else Killua must do, something his body's forgotten, or perhaps ignored, and it's important.

He starts running, but he's not looking where he's going.

*

The flutter of air Killua leaves behind him dissipates into the wind as soon as Gon steps outside, almost as if Killua's never been there.

Almost.

Gon almost misses the warmth.

*

It's shame that floods Killua next. He's committed a betrayal of the worst kind: he abandoned his friend.

Once upon a time, a lifetime ago, he'd promised to never betray his friends. How can he look Gon in the eye after what he's done? How can he look _anyone_ in the eye now that he knows he's a traitor?

*

Gon stops.

There's something missing.

He waits.

It must've been his imagination.

*

"I owe you one," Ikalgo says, and everything snaps into focus: the hall's actual dimensions, the passage of time, the tiles on which he's running.

For what, Killua doesn't ask. For betraying my friend? For leaving him when --

_\-- when he needs me ..._

Except that if Gon needed him, he would've stopped when Killua did. He would've turned back and maybe even helped Killua dispose of the ants that had endangered Ikalgo. 

_If Gon needed me, he would've looked back._

Gon hadn't looked back.

_Gon doesn't need me._

Killua keeps running anyway, but his footsteps are almost heavy, almost sloppy. They almost make a sound.

When he finally makes it outside to where Gon is, when he finally sees Gon again, Killua's heart swells, then breaks, and he doesn't know why.

*

Killua comes back.

Gon knew he would.

At any other time, he might've been glad.

*

"Killua," Gon says.

Killua turns back to Gon, hoping to see a shimmer of acknowledgement. A glance. A nod.

Nothing.

"Pitou is over there."

Killua looks.

There is a moment of silence, of introspection; it's the first since they've stepped foot inside the palace. A pause.

The eye of the storm: Killua's standing on the edge where the winds are strongest, but Gon is at the centre, steady as a rock.

"Let's go," Gon says , and jumps.

*

Suddenly, Killua is no longer behind Gon.

It's all right, though. Killua will join him soon.


End file.
